Writings on the wall

The Yes-men managed another wonderful stunt the other day:
At a Wharton Business School conference on business in Africa, World Trade Organization representative Hanniford Schmidt announced the creation of a WTO initiative for “full private stewardry of labor” for the parts of Africa that have been hardest hit by the 500 years of Africa’s free trade [...]

Mark Kaplan, 18 months ago, presented the ultimate blog argument. Titled “Notes on Rhetoric” it was a list of the phrases and techniques used in dodgy comment thread debate. It’s hilarious and very much to the point. I’ll give you a couple of excerpts:

A priori - your apriori supposition is that: “I operate by the [...]

As John Allison points out so clearly here
what the middle east needs is not Disco Tex and the Sex-o-lettes but for Israel to help Lebanon to casualty
and hang around for 8 hours to make sure she’s alright.

I SPY quoted a phrase from 1984 in a comment thread and it set me thinking, not for the first time, about the similarities between our current situation and that envisaged by George Orwell. With a bit of searching I’ve pieced together a manual for those of you who might wish to become evil megalomaniac [...]

There’s only one way to understand this, and Douglas Adams said it best:
‘On [that] world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.’
‘Odd,’ said Arthur, ‘I thought you said it was a democracy?’
‘I did,’ said Ford, ‘It is.’
‘So,’ said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding [...]